The time Shredder made good on his word, plus TMNT in the Desert!

Shredder was having a rough time of it. Krang tried to steal his body, he suffered the indignity of being rescued by the turtles, and his henchmen had retired to be gay nudest lovers on an alien paradise. Meanwhile, the turtles (befreit of both big bads) decide to go on a road trip to expand their horizons (Splinter's idea). They end up traveling to Japan, through Tibet, and into the most sandy parts of the Middle East.

History lesson time!

Hey look,it's Muhammad in a comic way before it was edgy and cool! He looks like Aladdin's dad.

Also, the Wikipedia tells me that there's not only a Black Stone and a White Stone, but a Red Stone as well! No reports of them being stolen by a mutant shark from the future to power a time travel device, however.

As they travel, the pass by two men on camels going the other direction, one of whom recognizes Splinter. Our heroes make it to a tower near Mecca, where they are attacked by a totally awesome falcon-guy and pals, who think they have stolen the Black Stone. They do the requisite fight, realize the true enemy, and team up thing just as a sandstorm hits.

Shock! It was the Shredder! That look works on him.

...Obvious. Totally.

Shredder and Verminator take off with Splinter, leaving the turtles to bust out of the force bubble. Their new best friend, Al'falqa, sends a falcon to track down the villains (he speaks bird).

It's always time for fun facts about history!

They emerge in the oasis where Shredder and Verminator are waiting. There's a tussle with some Foot Supersolders.

The turtles are winning the battle, until a time-slip opens.

Oh snap!

Hey, don't cry, awesome bird-man. Ninjara stole back the Black Stone and replaced it with a garden-variety black rock. Thus, the day is saved.

I like the depiction of Shredder here. Yeah, he hates the turtles and he's willing to throw the world into a heated religious war, but he's got honor. He could have claimed he didn't remember, or that not killing them outright counts, but didn't.

Next issue: Cudley!

(Note: The above issues were 28 pages of story each. I counted the first two issues of #26 as from #25, because they are the exact same pages, only the scanned slightly better. This was actually a pretty common method of padding in the TMNT Adventures days.)

Bonus round: Some scans from the TMNT Handbooks

Ol' chrome dome himself:

Awesome bird dude. I should have grabbed more scans of him. I think he shows up way later?

Remember that time the turtles fought a mind flayer with Doc Ock arms? He dressed like he was going to the Renaissance Fair, and had a globe of teleportation? Yeah, me neither.

I don't really care for the art when this guy showed up, but his profile pic is top notch.

Because I skipped out on their fight scene, here's everything you wanted to know about Foot robots. I love how they speak.

Next time: Whatever happened to the future? Hopefully IJ does not eat that post, like it did this one.

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